[burpg] Fun facts update
- From: "Kelley, Andrew, Todd" <atkelley@xxxxxx>
- To: "burpg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <burpg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 07:04:43 +0000
Hey everyone,
As I'm sure you're all aware we've been doing an absolutely insane amount of
work this summer on, well... everything. The Mk IIb, The Mk V, electronics,
software, etc. I thought I'd take a moment to make sure everyone is aware of
some of the more interesting/fun things about our system for the coming year:
- This thing's big... like really big. The N2O tank alone is 13.3 ft
long and 12" dia. So... yeah, big. The test stand will be 3 stories tall...
- We're throttling the rocket now! This actually improves our overall
altitude performance by reducing the maximum drag forces we see. This is done
by putting a small rotatable plate just after the pyro valve that is controlled
with a servo by Kronos.
- We're burning for 70 seconds as a result. Original plan was like, 45
seconds. Now we're going for a burn and a half...
- Our boards are in! They're really cool! We've come a LONG way from
the stuff we were using on the Mk. III and early on the Mk. IV.
- [cid:image002.jpg@01CFB753.51C2E750]
- Data... soooo much data. We have something like 81 data flows this
year... Compared to the 12 we had the year before that, and the 4 the year
before that. That's a lot of data...
[cid:image003.jpg@01CFB753.51C2E750]
- Software! The new software is really coming along (if I do say so
myself), and is going to be pretty awesome. It currently supports custom
autosequences that can be loaded with the click of a button, telemetry streams
and graphing, and all necessary network functionality for a virtually unlimited
number of connections to the primary data server (Olympus). Oh and the average
CPU usage when small amounts of data are flowing? 0-2%... Here are a few screen
shots of various windows.
[cid:image009.png@01CFB752.70333880][cid:image005.png@01CFB751.5188D670]
[cid:image004.jpg@01CFB753.51C2E750]
- New test stand in the works. We have some concerns about the old
test stand's rigidity so we're redesigning it. It'll basically just be a giant
steel tower with a rocket on the side...
- New GSE laptop! Armor happened to come into a Sony Viao Series F for
all of $Free.99 that has an i7 and nVidia 640m in it. It just needs the OS
reinstalled and we have our new, and significantly more powerful, GSE laptop.
- And just for giggles, here's a picture of Armor's, Tom's and my boss
(Elon Musk for those of you who didn't know) photoshopped to look like an
1800's railroad/oil baron. (Note: I did not make this)
[cid:image007.jpg@01CFB753.51C2E750]
Lemme know if you have any questions!
Also, thanks everyone for all their hard work so far. This is going to be an
absolutely unbelievable year (despite the fact that I will no longer be in
Boston... :()
-Drew
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